Adobe Acrobat - Permanently Disable Home Screen Feature

[Joe26853055d0nb]

Please describe the exact preference in Adobe Acrobat Pro that permanently disables the Home Screen feature. Please don't send a pointless link to directions that don't solve my problem. Tell me exactly how to disable this pointless and annoying feature.

[Test Screen Name]

No.

[JR Boulay]

What do you mean by "Home Screen feature"?

What is it?

[Meenakshi Negi]

Hi Joe26853055d0nb,

Thank you for reaching out.

If you are referring to removing the Home page in Acrobat that opens by default when you open the application directly, it is not possible. It is designed behavior.

Let us know if you were referring to some other feature.

Thanks,

Meenakshi 

[MikeMac966]

Then it's a stupid design that belongs in Windows 98. The multi-step process for accessing files (if not recent) is also incredibly annoying and counterproductive. A backwards step.

[Colin6402]

The persistent "Home" screen in Adobe Acrobat is beyond annoying,  it disrupts the workflow and feels absolutely unnecessary. When I close a document, I want the app to close entirely rather than defaulting to the "Home" screen.

I’ve explored the preferences but couldn’t find an option to disable this feature. It would be great if Adobe allowed users to customize this behavior. Adding an option to skip the "Home" screen would improve the experience for many users who prefer a simpler, document-focused workflow.

[randy_3232]

Agree. I must do 100 - 200 extra mouse clicks on a typical day just to get back to the screen I was on when I opened a PDF document. When closing a document, I want to go back to the same screen and not have to go to my tray and click the Explorer icon then the correct page of the several that I have open at the same time. Beyond frustrating!

[Colin6402]

It’s absolutely insane. Like every other software suite publisher, Adobe’s endgame is clear: make their ecosystem the center of your digital universe and lock you in. The result? A total minefield of “where the hell did I save that file?” — Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Drive, Apple Files, OneDrive, local storage… pick your poison.

Instead of improving the user experience, we’re stuck in a constant tug-of-war between cloud service providers. It’s exhausting. Bottom line: empower customers to choose, don’t add to the chaos just because it serves your business model. That’s how you lose loyal users—fast.

[Mike Bro]

@Joe26853055d0nb 

See the correct answer posted in the link below...

you may want to uncheck the show online storage options also...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/how-to-make-home-screen-goes-away-after-closing-p...

Regards,

Mike

[Ratushebarl]

Are you AI? That page is from 2015, the option no longer exists.

[JR Boulay]

There are only humans on this users forum.
I don't use a Mac any more so I can't check whether this option still exists, but what I can say for sure is that it only existed in the Mac version, not in the Windows version.

[JR Boulay]

"See the correct answer posted in the link below..."

This is a MacOS only feature, not available on Windows.

[Mike353088081lcl]

This is beyond annoying.  All previous versions of Acrobat, ctrl-w would close the pdf and minimize acrobat.  Now i have to constantly content with this useless home screen taking up my entire desktop.

[fumblerooskie]

Agreed. It's beyond useless for me and a complete waste of space.
I really wish Adobe would listen to its customers. It seems very arrogant to simply ignore/deny requests to have the ability to completely custominze the workspace. Instead we have to deal with nonsense such as the uneeded/unwanted "home screen" and the bright blue "Adobe Account" button. Adobe appears to have become Quark from the '90s.

[JimRanes]

This issue still is not solved. Replying to bump this topic. Anyone know of any progress on how to turn off the home screen? Very annoying. The setting in the preferences does NOT work. C'mon Adobe, PLEASE fix this!!!

[yurei1202]

Fullu agree. This is so dump. I'm using Adobe products for 30 years and I used to love the products they've made. Now I really hate Adobe. I love indesign. The people behind it know what thay are doing and don't force unnecessary changes.
It's how day say - what is the worst enemy of good?...Better. They are doing instant nonsense changes to Photoshop. Now they put their hands on Acrobat. What's the idea for changing interfaces, keyboard shortcuts, function usage? It's so stupid. If it wasn't for my clients who also struggle with adobe products, I would have changed it 8 years ago. But competitors are progressing and one day Adobe will end up like Quark, unless they stop messing with everything just for doing something. Better focus on making products work like it should – Illustrator the worst of all of them. Full of bugs, super slow almost unusable even on fastest macs, unprecise !!!. NIGHTMARE

[Darklaw-787]

Bumping to show my support. Found this thread googling hth to remove this feature -_____-.

[Greg Harbour]

Being unable to disable homeview/screen is a great example why I'm replacing Acrobat with Preview for most use because of its scope creep from a useful utility to an app pursuing no clear purpose so just occluding its utility

[JR Boulay]

Preview, aka "the PDF killer".

This old article is still relevant: http://khkonsulting.com/2013/06/preview-app-killer-of-pdf-files/

[hunterjones]

Amen to that. It's so unbelievably bloated now. A massive minefield of productivity hazards. Close this, close that, harrass you non stop with extraneous features that Adobe incessantly tries to convince you that you need, non stop tool tips and annoying feature changes, etc. etc. etc. It's awful.

Preview all the way.

[Vinny F.]

I use preview for commenting, as the Acrobat commenting tools are now garbage and too complwx to use.

[JR Boulay · Accepted solution]

Ratushebarl Greg Harbour

Joe26853055d0nb

Simply uncheck this option in the Preferences (macOS only, not available for the Windows version).

[MikeMac966]

Unchecked, home screen still displays. Wrong answer sorry.

[JR Boulay]

Try to revert to the Classic UI: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/acrobat-2023-how-to-revert-to-classic-gui-user-in...
Consider the "new Acrobat" as a beta version, many features are still missing or half-implemented.

[MikeMac966]

Did that, same dumb interface. I don't want to see any Acrobat UI that doesn't allow me to go straight to the Finder and search for files on my system. Same as InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and all the other Adobe products I use. The new setup - now over a year old - puts unnecessary steps in the way. Time for Adobe to admit they got Acrobat all wrong and dump the useless UI.